People notice change. You notice the hum of the air-conditioner when it comes on and when it goes off – but not in between. So change will get attention in your presentations as well.
Change what the audience sees of you and your environment.
Change your stance and gestures.
Change your position and location to emphasis a point.
Change the type of visual aids you are using – maybe from flip chart to object to slides.
Introduce a video clip into your presentation.
Make sure your slides do not follow a template.
Introduce something very different or unexpected.
Change the way you present. Use silence and pauses. Change your tone of voice and your speaking volume. All of these will match what you are trying to deliver – facts, stories, data, persuasion, all require different presentation styles, but the change caused by this will also keep attention.
Change your material.
Signpost changes, or new points you are making by using a sentence or a word, and a gesture, that heralds something new. This regains audience attention as well as whetting their appetite for more. Change topics.
Change the state of the audience. Have them move into groups to discuss a concept or share ideas about a topic. Change later to simply discussing with a neighbour.
Ask questions. Have them raise their hands to answer. This changes their physical state and allows a change in mental attention as well. Get them moving in some other way.
Changes in your presentation, in your presentation style and in the audience’s own physical, emotional and mental states will keep their attention focussed and re-focussed.
(c) Bronwyn Richie
If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but only if you include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, a writer, and an award-winning speaker and trainer.
She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk , a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. Boost your speaking success, click here for Bronwyn’s FREE 30 speaking tips. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
Carmine spoke to an audience of grad students at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. His topic: The New Rules of Persuasive Presentations pulled from his best-selling book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Here’s an excerpt.
=> http://bit.ly/YNd0Je
You can avoid losing your audience by being sparing with dates, figures and statistics.
These are all very powerful ways to support your points, but overuse them and they just become boring, and your audience will turn off.
If data is absolutely necessary, use your slides to create a visual rendition of it.
Tell stories about it.
Find some way to relate it to your audience – percentages of people like them, for example, or of their country.
Meet me in the coffee shop for a cuppa and join in the discussion. => http://bit.ly/W47hiy
If you want to persuade, you can build your success with the reciprocity rule.
What is the Reciprocity rule?
When someone gives us something, we feel obligated to give something back. We are uncomfortable if we don’t. And that something might be a physical object or it might be a service or a gift. That something might not even be something we want or need. We probably never asked for it, or expected it.
How does this work?
The Reciprocity Rule has been ingrained in us for centuries. I suspect it began in a society that was based on barter and trade. The system could only survive if there was a rule that we always return favours, we must never owe. It safeguards anyone who wants to do a favour or give a gift – they know they will get something in return.
Strangely enough, the return favour can be bigger than the original and we will reciprocate even if we don’t like the person who gave the gift or don’t like the gift itself. The rule is that deep and that powerful. It is part of our socialisation process. People who do not return favours are shunned. We are brought up that this is the right thing to do, and warned of dire consequences if we do not “do the right thing”.
Because the rule is so deeply ingrained, we are used to using it when we need to make decisions. There are so many decisions to be made on a daily basis that we will use whatever we can to avoid having to think about them and this rule comes in handy. Oftentimes the decision to think in a certain way or to choose a particular person can be based solely on the fact that we owe them something, or that they gave us something.
It has been found that no human society does not use the reciprocity rule. It has been used by corporations and governments to persuade people for thousands of years.
I want to look at this concept of “doing the right thing” but first want to add some of the ways the Reciprocity Rule works in practice. It does not just apply to gifts or favours. It applies to concessions. I request a favour and it is refused. Then I request a smaller favour. Because I have made a concession to you, it is highly likely that you will accede to the smaller favour in return. If I yield to your opinion on one topic, it is more likely that you will agree with me on the next topic, in return.
Now, given all of this information, you can go ahead and use the reciprocity rule in your persuasion efforts. Making sales? Offer a freebie, any freebie, and ask for the sale. Asking for a favour? Ask for a huge one first, then you can ask for what your really want. Want to change someone’s mind? Agree with them on anything else, but expect them to change in the way you wanted. And this amounts not just to persuasion, but to manipulation.
We all know of salesmen, the old type of salesmen, who use the rule of reciprocity to trick people into the sale – to manipulate. Many of us immediately put up a barrier as soon as we suspect the trickery. Every time someone knocks on my home front door, I move into that barrier mode. I don’t like it because I cannot “do the right thing”, and politely reciprocate. I have to be on alert to trickery. In the end, we will use the rule of reciprocity to buy or to return favours or to be persuaded, when we believe that the gifts or favours or beliefs are valuable and offered in good faith. We will not reciprocate a favour or gift for a trick or a marketing tactic.
Now I want to turn this around and look at the situation from our viewpoint as speakers who want to persuade. And there are speakers who are so obviously using these techniques with one thing in mind – manipulation – their own gain…. they are not “doing the right thing” either.
And now there are other people not “doing the right thing” – in our audiences. As a speaker, we also are facing the challenge of dealing with people who are distracted from our messages by their electronic devices – their phones, laptops, tablets. Not very long ago, this would have been considered incredibly bad manners, to show such disrespect for a speaker – certainly not “doing the right thing”. So we cannot depend on our audiences to do the right thing and sit through ill-disguised efforts to trick them into buying our products, or trick them into doing us favours or trick them into believing the message we have for them.
So what is the answer to this quandary? How can we create a win-win situation for everyone – persuade ethically and not manipulate or trick. I think the answer lies in “doing the right thing”.
Be prepared to give without expecting something in return. Know that giving is a useful persuasion tool, but give anyway.
Give value – that is value to the audience or your client or potential buyer, something that is exclusively for that person or group of people.
Be transparent and authentic. Make it clear that you are giving a gift. Use language that reinforces this side of the transaction. But make it clear that the recipient has a choice. You are “doing the right thing” but also empowering your client/audience/buyer. Empowered people feel more open to being persuaded. Make it also very clear that what you are asking for in return is in their best interests as well – the service you offer, the new perspective you introduce, the product.
If you want to use the rejection-retreat strategy, then do so transparently. It is valid to assume that a portion of your audience will want the higher priced product, the more difficult action to take. It is also valid to assume that perhaps more will want the lower priced/easier solution, and you can make that clear as well.
In terms of making a concession, it makes sense to address objections to an idea early on in a presentation. People need to feel understood and to have their beliefs and prior understandings validated, even if you are about to prove them wrong!! And that is the “doing the right thing” aspect of making a concession in terms of a belief so that your audience may be more happy to reciprocate and make a concession towards whatever you want to persuade them to do, think or feel.
I really do not want us to be part of the increasing number of speakers who use ill-disguised efforts at manipulation in order to persuade – not when it is so easy to “do the right thing” and persuade with honesty, openness, integrity and to create a win for all concerned.
© Bronwyn Ritchie … If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie helps speakers to be confident and effective. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com
It’s terribly important for most people to fit in, to belong, to be part of a group. Our clothes fashion industry depends on it, our politicians depend on it and cliques everywhere thrive on it.
I know – it’s not terribly smart to always follow the herd, but when we are not sure of ourselves or want to find out the best way to do things, we tend to find out what everyone else is doing and try it on for size.
And of course, this applies to your audiences as well.
If you want to introduce a new idea or persuade them to think, act or feel in a new way, then you can tap into this herd instinct.
People don’t want to feel an outcast because their beliefs and habits are different.
They also tend to believe that the more other people do something or believe something then the more likely it is to be true or worth doing. This is why you can use polls and survey results to support your ideas.
We also tend to have a case of “I want what she/he’s having”. We want to be like someone else who has the lifestyle we think we want. Maybe they are rich and famous, confident, a celebrity, a superstar, a guru. So if you can associate your idea or point or product with someone who is famous or a celebrity, then people are really tempted to adopt it. Celebrity endorsement is a great persuader.
Social proof is a powerful support in your efforts to persuade.
Testimonials are a fantastic way to provide social proof. If I hear somewhere that 36,000 people are listening to a speaker, then I think he must be worth hearing. If a book is outselling “Harry Potter” I should investigate it.
Those testimonials are using the power of numbers.
If people believe a testimonial comes from a neutral third party, that testimonial will be more powerful for them.
It is especially powerful if your audience believes it is coming from a person who is similar to them. If the testimonial tells about how someone overcame the same problem, or it tells how someone just like them achieved what they want it will be powerful. And of course if you tell a story about someone just like them who overcame the same problems to achieve what they want then you can sell that solution. Align yourself with your audience from the beginning of your speech and that someone can be you. Tell your own story.
If, on the other hand, you aren’t seen as an authority, yet, align yourself with someone who is. That”s why we use quotations in our speeches, to align ourselves with that other person’s wisdom and sometimes wit! If we choose someone the audience admires as an authority, then we increase our own credibility.
The final way to use the social side of your audience’s nature is to create a group. You can create a group of the whole audience, have them relating to each other, feeling that they have much in common, that they have similar problems and similar dreams. Then create emotion so that they feel that together. Crowd behaviour can be a powerful way of tipping someone over to support your idea.
I have also seen a speaker create a group within the audience. Get some indication from your audience as to who believes in a particular point you are making, or supports a particular role model you hold up. Maybe they find something easy, that the rest of the audience finds difficult. Then you can take advantage of the feeling of being left out that attacks the rest of the audience, and give them the opportunity to join the group you set up.
I know this may sound to be bordering on unethical. I have seen these methods used by the unscrupulous in ways that just made me angry and I certainly don’t want to recommend that approach. But from watching those presenters at work and then reading up on what they had done and why, I have discovered that it is something we all do, unconsciously.
If you are not using people’s social senses in your speaking, consider it, and how you can fit it into your own ethical, authentic presentation style.
Author: Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com